A lot has happened in the world of retail media over the past year. AI and agentic commerce is, of course, the centre of a lot of conversations – but it’s not the only transformational shift that’s been taking place. Marketplace-driven growth, product-led retail media, and full-funnel expansion are three major shifts that took place in 2025 – and this is what Colin Lewis and Octavie Gosselin, Vice President of Mirakl Ads, unpack in the latest episode of The Retail Media Podcast.
This special final episode was recorded live at one of the world’s biggest gatherings of retailers – NRF 2026, in New York. Taking place exactly a year after Colin and Octavie first came together for the very first podcast recording, who better to discuss the transformations that have happened within the retail media space in that time?
The year retail media grew up
If 2024 was the year retail media found its voice, 2025 is the year it learned to speak fluently. What emerges from Colin and Octavie’s conversation is a sense of an industry maturing fast — not through incremental tweaks, but through structural shifts. Marketplace sellers are no longer a side story; they’re the growth engine. AI isn’t a bolt‑on; it’s the operating system. And the product catalogue, once a back‑office asset, is now the centrepiece of discovery, monetisation, and agentic commerce. The episode captures a sector that’s not just evolving but accelerating, with retailers and advertisers racing to keep pace with a landscape where the rules are being rewritten in real time.
As Colin closes the episode — and the series — back where it all began, the conversation feels less like a wrap‑up and more like a launchpad. Retail media is entering a phase defined by intelligence, automation, and new growth levers that extend far beyond the on‑site playbook. The retailers who succeed in 2026 will be those who embrace marketplace sellers as core advertisers, treat product data as strategic infrastructure, and lean into agentic commerce rather than waiting for it to arrive.
If this episode proves anything, it’s that the next chapter won’t be written by those who watch the change, but by those who build for it.
Interested?
Watch The Retail Media Podcast: Full Circle at NRF
